Trust me, if I were asked to watch McG’s treatment of the Terminator franchise I wouldn’t turn it down. Is it one of the best the franchise has ever offered? No. In fact it’s one of the lamest simply because it takes every advantage to flex its PG-13 rating and make sure that everyone but the humans suffer a wicked death. In this version every human is given a bloodless death by robots we’re assured are vicious, merciless, and willing to make their victims suffer a long and painful death. All ounce of suffering we’ve seen at the hands of the machines in previous films is bypassed in exchange for interchangeable special effects and ho-hum action sequences.
Tag Archives: Adventure
Justice League: The Complete Series (2009) (DVD)
Though marketed as “The Complete Series,” the Justice League complete sets provides fifteen DVD’s that actually boasts two highly different television series’. I say that because the creators eventually reached a limit to what they could do with one version of their show and eventually provided a second series that was obviously an extension of the show but approached the source material with a different tone altogether. So while reviewing the show I had to take in to consideration that I was reviewing two series based on a single idea stuffed in to a very beautiful boxed set that is protected by a dazzling tin display case.
With the plethora of special features we get to see “Justice League,” a show based around the comic books dressed in Bruce Timm’s signature art style and storytelling. Here we follow seven of DC’s flagship heavyweights who take hold of the first series through epic storylines based around two parter episodes that are often more epic than most of the animated series ever made.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
The character of Wolverine has always been a hard sell for yours truly. As a comic book superhero, Wolverine has always been one of the more overrated in Marvel Comics in spite of his rabid following. Wolverine’s progression from this tier villain to top tier superhero has been nothing short of remarkable, so when he received his own spin off that unfolds to tell his story once and for all, I was quite confused. The entire “X-Men” film franchise have already been nothing more than vehicles for the Wolverine with the X-Men taking nothing more than a supporting status to what he can do on screen. We’ve already had three Wolverine films, did we really need to see another with the furry one front and center? Yes and no.
The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)
I’m one of the many people in the film community who has had nothing but contempt for the practices Rob Zombie has exorcised since his venturing in to filmmaking. Beside “Devil’s Rejects,” Zombie is a man who is nothing but a studio tool who injects his own brand of trailer trash chic in everything he does, even polluting the origin of Michael Myers with it. Zombie is 100 percent Grade A hack and a complete studio stooge who knows how to be a horror fan but doesn’t know what horror fans want, nor will he ever try to find out.
Liberty's Kids: The Complete Series (DVD)
Like every bit of American history, it’s good to know that “Liberty’s Kids” tells its core audience only one part of the story and never the full details on what, when, and why. For one thing, the series focuses on only a quarter of American history with a sometimes artful dodging of aspects like slavery, illness, and the bloody events that were the wars. However there is a considerable acknowledging of slavery as one of our main characters, an African American, battles on the forefront of the Civil War in order to escape slavery. Sadly, the episode that focuses on the Native American experience only depicts us as inadvertent dominators of the land, not the evil villainous barons who strong armed a race out of their motherland.
The Wizard of Oz (1939) (70th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD)
“The Wizard of Oz” remained a favorite of mine all through my childhood and after so much advancement in special effects, it’s still a marvel to watch. Fleming and Warner’s partnering was a match made in heaven as Fleming took the L. Frank Baum beloved novel and gave us a fantasy epic that’s been mimicked and beloved since its initial release. Years after wearing down my old VHS copy I’ve managed to view the Victor Fleming masterpiece as one of the weirdest films ever made. Watching it from the view of a child differs from when you see it as an adult and watching it on the restored 70th Anniversary edition has brought to mind some images that seemed normal then that are surprisingly surreal today.
Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock (2009)
So this is what it’s come to for Rodriguez. Trading all his indie cred for a movie that plays like a messy sloppy concoction of ideas that never even bother to sort out its stories and characters for the audience. Instead, per Robert’s usual bad habit, we’re given a bunch of supporting characters, main characters, and side characters, all of whom are barely emphasized in the wide scope of this ADD enhanced stink pile. Rodriguez’s style of making the cheapest movie with his quick fix CGI has become something of a really bad habit where the man doesn’t even seem to want to try his hand at complicated filmmaking anymore.